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So our suffering false imprisonment for others' mistakes or follies is a crime, as was her careless act under the circumstances, and society ought so to be educated into this principle.

CHAPTER XXXIX.
Orthodox Heaven and Hell.

If Insane Asylums are not the Presbyterian heaven and hell combined, so long preached by Mr. Packard, I do not know what is! Endless torment, inflicted by a heartless despot, from whom it is impossible to escape, and whom it is as impossible to move to pity or compassionate his helpless victims, is but the symbol of this Pandemonium.

If hope once reaches here, it is in despite of him and his power and influence.

This is also their heaven; since we here have hard "seats" to sit upon, and nothing to do or amuse, except to sit and sing, in presence of the writhing of lost spirits! Rest and sing!

What rest can a benevolent sympathizing nature experience, while knowing another soul is in torment!

There is no rest for active benevolence. So long as one soul is unredeemed from Satan's power, I must work for that soul's deliverance before I can sing:

"Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to redeem mankind."

The confident assurance that it will be redeemed, is the only ground upon which I can rely for peace and quiet in the mean time. Attractive as are the hard seats of heaven for "rest" to the idler, to me they have no attraction. All my god-like powers thirst for action, and use.

Inert, stupid indifference to others' interests, is, to my social sympathetic nature, a moral impossibility; and I heartily pray God to deliver me from a mansion in such a heaven, in company with such spirits.

My experience of it here in this asylum, has been enough for me. If this is the character of heaven, for which we have borne the discipline of our earth life, I wish my earth life never to terminate, for such a heaven of "rest" is hell to me.

Again can hell be a worse institution than this, while it punishes the best citizens for the offenses of the worst?

There have been hundreds imprisoned in it whose only offense is being true to the promptings of the spirit of God within them.

They are more natural, more god-like than their cotemporaries, and the laws are so insane in their application, that they punish the best citizens for the offenses of the worst.

The dictatorial dogmatist contrives with the sagacity which the "old serpent" imparts to him, to so misrepresent and vilify the honest self-sacrificing Christian, who is striving to live out the dictates of an enlightened conscience, that he is either compelled to compromise with iniquity, or, if steadfast for the right, he is made to endure the false charge of insanity.

Henceforth he must be regarded as an incompetent being, incapable of self-government, and thus subject to all the abuses and insults which can be heaped upon him. Like his Master, he is now called to pass through Gethsemane's garden alone, with none to listen to his sorrows, or alleviate his anguish, with wakeful, generous sympathy. Even his own familiar friend, in whom he trusted, his bosom companion, has lifted his heel against him, and now no one dares to comfort or defend him against this accuser.

Thus forsaken, deserted, desolate, he finds no refuge left him, except the tower of faith, whose dome of love shelters his lonely heart. If that tower is so strongly fortified as to prove invulnerable, he is safe. If not, he is left refugeless, with no home or shelter on earth or in heaven. He is now the ready prey for the roaring lion, who delights in his ruin.

He then becomes insane, made so by the indefatigable efforts of his friends, aided by the evil influences of this Inquisition.

His high and noble nature is driven to desperation by these combined forces, and his reason becomes lost in frenzied impulse!

Why, Oh, why, is it that such institutions are permitted to get a foothold upon the free soil of our republicanism? Why cannot our natures, made in God's image here, be allowed free scope for a natural development? Why cannot the intellectual and spiritual nature of man here have free scope to run to perfection?

Is it because the spiritual nature of man can only become perfected by opposition, by restraint, by overcoming obstacles? Can its strength and power of self-reliance be only thus acquired?

Oh, if the blood of martyrs must be the seed of this Spiritual Church, as it has been of the Christian Church, cannot the long list of martyrs which this institution has furnished be sufficient for this age of spiritual development? or, must every stage of spiritual progress be thus marked by the sable robes of martyrdom?

Is not the time at hand when man may be free to obey the impulses of his spiritual nature, without being called insane?

These holy influences I cannot, will not, resist, defenseless as I am. The inner law of my own mind shall never yield to human dictation, encouraged by the conviction that the end of this American Inquisition cannot be far distant.